Thursday, March 24, 2011

I have been to Gunung Nuang via Ulu Langat twice. The first time was part of the preparation to climb Mount Kinabalu and the second was to prepare for Mount Tahan.

We spent 11 hours of hiking when we went there the first time. For the second time, we camped for one night. From the experience of both trips, I can conclude that climbing Gunung Nuang is very challenging. It's not first timers and not for new comers either.

I have often heard that Nuang via Janda Baik is less tough and hikers spend less time to complete the climb. With that in mind, I planned another Nuang trip (via Janda Baik of course) with my group. We were told it'd take us between 3.5 to 4 hours of hiking to the peak.

If I were to go there again, perhaps I will not climb Gunung Nuang, I will just do jungle trekking up to the waterfall area and enjoy myself there. And come back to Zaini's Guest House to have BBQ dinner. Gunung Nuang is definitely more fun via Ulu Langat and camping is recommended due to distance.

We were supposed to follow a group of friends from PD but eventually we went ahead in our smaller group with the help of John and Joey (J&J) who were kind enough to be our guides. Thank you to both of them, whom I met in my previous trip to Gunung Angsi. We planned to start the trekking early in the morning. So as not to trouble anyone, having to get up early at around 4am, we decided to come one day earlier and stayed at Zaini's Guest House. The chalet is located about 500 meters from the starting point. We liked the ambiance at the chaletand enjoyed our short stay there. We got up as early as 5.00am and after a quick breakfast at about 6.15am, we went to our car to get ready and joined J&J at about 6.40am.

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After a short introduction and pleasantries, we started our trekking and the first challenge was to cross the stream. It was still early in the morning and the water was very cold. We crossed at the second spot to do so as water level at the first place was higher. The water was very cold as it was still early in the morning.

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Along the way, we saw agri crops like french beans and four angled beans. We thought of picking up some and pay the caretaker when we got back. By the time, we got back, we were already very tired and no longer excited about the idea.

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This signboard was very important to us. We were kind of lost, trying to figure out which way to go. One of the farm caretakers told us to go to the signboard and follow the trail from there. From then on, we were sure of our trail and never looked back.

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Amongst the differences between between the trail of Ulu Langat and Janda that I noticed are the trails at Janda Baik are not as established as Ulu Langat due to the fact it's less popular and less number of people using the trail. I prefer Ulu Langat trails as it's more fun, there are Check Points to look forward to namely Kem Lolo, Kem Pacat and Puncak Pengasih (false peak). There were none of those in Janda Baik. The trail between Kem Pacat and Puncak Pengasih was the one that differentiate Gunung Nuang from other mountains and we didn't see that in Janda Baik. I must say that the trails in Janda Baik are less challenging, nevertheless, it takes almost the same number of hours.

We were prepard with confetti to be left along the trails. As it turned out, we didn't have enough up to the peak. I like leaving confetti trails as it gives the confidence to the people behind that they are not on the right track.

We had to go through so many bamboo tunnels along the way. There are bamboos along the never ending road via Ulu Langat but we don't have to pass through any tunnel. The trails were cleared off of bamboo hurdles. That's not the case here in Janda Baik. The trails were slippery especially when we came back as there were so may people hiking on that day. And it was raining heavily for two days in a row!

We reached the peak about 5 hours later. There were already many people hikers when we reached there and majority of them were using Ulu Langat trails. As expected, my friends from PD overtook us along the way too.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I go through my blog updates lately and I noticed that I haven't been updating much about hiking activities anymore.

The fact is I still go out and hike but I haven't been exploring new places as yet. Hiking is my favourite outdoor activities that I do it very often over the weekend. These days, it's a fortnightly event that I do with either family members, colleagues or friends. There was one time I had no one to follow me as it was unplanned so I went alone to Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve in Puchong. It's not advisable to hike alone but it's okay to do so in places like Bukit Gasing, Ayer Hitam FR, Broga Hill and several others at the fringe of KL area as these places are frequented by a lot of people over the weekend.

When I was hiking alone in Ayer Hitam FR, I took the time to read at least a chapter from the book that I was reading at that time.

For the first time ever, I went jungle trekking with my family members. We are not from Selangor but all of us with the exception of one brother are currently staying in Shah Alam and Klang area. Eight of us including my eldest brother and his wife, my sisters, youngest brother, a niece and a nephew went for jungle trekking at Ayer Hitam FR last month. It's a beautiful and memorable experience to have an outdoor family outing like that. It was the first time that we had such outing and we plan not to make it as the last one as well. We now plan to do it at least once a quarter.

I have got my hiking activities planned with at least one monthly event up to July this year. The curtain closure before the fasting month will be the trip to Bukittinggi, Padang, Indonesia. Other than that, we are also planning to go to Port Dickson for raptor watch and cliff climbing, to Penang for hiking, swimming at Pantai Kerachut and makan-makan and to Cameron Highlands for hiking and shopping for fresh agri produces.

I am happy as everything is going on smoothly and we have implemented two trips planned for the month of January and February namely Angsi via Bukit Putus and Nuang via Janda Baik. I'll blog about our experience at Nuang soon.

How about the update on the wight loss initiative - KL's Biggest Loser? The second update is due and I lost almost two kilos within two months. We were ready for the third weigh-in but the scale at the gym was broken. It was a relief to some of us as the result hasn't been encouraging. Losing weight and dieting should be a life long journey instead of a destination. It should be a mental state of being, being conscious of what we eat all the times, being conscious about exercise and living healthy lifestyle. It's also about commitment and not about interest. Everyone is interested to lose weight and do a lot of exercise, but how many can say that they are committed to it? Commitment is about not accepting any excuses, just results!

Books? I am currently reading a local book on coaching. It's my new passion at work as part of the company's initiative towards crating coaching culture. I am reading the book to equip myself to be a better coach. I am planning to be a certified coach and amongst the requirements is I need to do at least 100 hours of coaching. Coaching is about empowering the employees to come up with their own solutions towards improving their performance at work. I will not talk much about it except for the book that I am currently reading. This is the third book for this year. I am also planning to finish reading some books that I read half way, there was biography of Anita Roddick, the founder of Body Shop that I read half way. I couldn't relate to her mid way through. What the heck, I'll finish it soon. It was one of those cheap books that I bought at exhibition for old books.

I bought this book about three years ago. I read it half way and put it down as I wasn't comfortable about the references to bible in almost all chapters. The book is about the power of subconscious mind towards self healing and removing some mental blocks in achieving success.

I was about to spend some money to buy more books to read during the last CNY holiday but then I remembered that I still had books that I read half way and this was one of them.

I decided to give it one last try and finish it. And I also decided to filter what I read and digested only the universal values shared by the author. After all, all religions in the world are about propagating better individuals in the context of the community at large using the values of good deeds. With that in mind, I finished reading the book within a week.

It's a practical book and it talks a lot about self affirmations and the inner self. As one saying goes 'we are the sum of our thoughts'. That's what I do these days, I start the day by having the attitude of gratitude, by being grateful of what I have, my good health, good career, good family, wife and children. By being grateful I remove the worry of not having enough and I am in a positive emotional state for the rest of the day.

Being grateful is an energizing way to start the day and a relaxing way to end it. Give it a try!